Hello. Sorry for my absence. I've just finished my exams, and was enjoying my freedom by lying on the sofa doing absolutely nothing. But today is a huge day in history.
I'm not American. I live in the UK, where same sex marriage has been legal for a few years.
But marriage equality in all 50 states is incredible. And I want to talk about it.
Clarification: 1. To those of you who disagree with my views, please don't leave any mean comments below about my beliefs or about homosexuality. I realise that there is a minority that have different opinions, but I do not want these expressed in an offensive way that attacks me, my beliefs, or the LGBTQ community.
2. I am a Christian, so all of my views take my religious beliefs into account.
As I just mentioned, I am a Christian. I think the most important part of being a Christian is loving everyone unconditionally. I realise that there are many, many quotes in the Bible speaking of how wrong being gay is. But there are also many, many quotes speaking of how women are the inferior sex and should submit to their husbands and speaking of stoning those who are not virgins when they get married (to clarify, I will not have sex before marriage, but I recognise that it is something that happens today). Firstly, if we were to follow everything the Bible says, we, as a religion, would be participating in old-fashioned and brutal beliefs and punishments. We would be treating women as objects, only to speak when spoken to, to not participate in discussions and debates, to not have an opinion. The majority of men and women would have been stoned to death by now. There are countless examples of things said and done in the Bible that just aren't socially acceptable today. So why, why do some believe that it is fine to discriminate people against something they can't control?
That's like me saying that everybody with blue eyes is wrong and unnatural. They can't control it. And neither can people born gay. Seriously, do you think people in the past would have willingly become homosexual, with the punishments that came with it back then? And now, why would anyone choose to have that kind of discrimination and hurtful protests, comments and campaigns against them?
Secondly, the Bible contradicts itself all the time. I mentioned above, the Bible talks of all sorts of socially unacceptable things. And then it speaks of loving everyone and treating the world as equal. It speaks of everyone being made in God's image. Everyone. The Bible does not say "Heterosexuals are made in God's image". Everyone.
I know I can't change people's minds, and I know so many people disagree with me. But so many agree with me. And that gives me hope. That the next generation will have less of this discrimination, and more of this love and equality. And the generation after that will have more than the previous. And the next also. And the next. And the next. And the next. Until everyone is accepted and everyone is equal and everyone can be who they were born to be.
Love always wins and always will.
And it has won today - June 26th 2015. The beginning of the end for discrimination.
Love Wins.
- B
